Miliband admits Labour overdid school reforms

The new education minister, who masterminded Labour's policies through two elections, admitted yesterday that it had piled too many ineffective initiatives on to schools.

In his first public address, David Miliband promised head teachers that the next phase of reform would not be "more of the same".

"My prejudice is to support fewer programmes with high impact, rather than a multitude of programmes that have low impact," he said. "So more reform is not the same as more initiatives."

Mr Miliband, 36, described by one senior head as "a year eight in a suit" because of his youthful appearance, was speaking to the annual conference of the National Association of Head Teachers a week after replacing Stephen Timms as schools standards minister.

Earlier, union members at the meeting in Torquay, Devon, had complained of the pressure on schools caused by Government initiatives and had voted overwhelmingly to ballot its members on industrial action if their workload had not been reduced by the end of this year.

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Susan Butcher, a head teacher in Swindon, Wilts, proposing the union's first industrial action in more than 20 years, said no single Government initiative was to blame but "the whole raft of them and the need to implement and manage the huge amount of change involved".

Mr Miliband, who was head of Labour's policy unit from l994 until last year, when he was elected the MP for South Shields, said reform had to be allied to "sustained investment" but warned that in return the Government wanted to see teachers deliver reforms.

The next few months will be crucial for the teacher unions, who want the Government to accept and implement their pay review body's recommendations to reduce their working hours. Guaranteed "professional time" every week out of the classroom will, however, be expensive and the Department for Education needs to get a significant increase of funds from the Chancellor's spending review this summer.

Since being elected as an MP, Mr Miliband has spoken of the need to boost the chances of children from deprived homes, calling for the brightest children in every school to be guaranteed places at leading universities regardless of A-levels.

"Wider participation goes with higher standards," he told the head teachers. "The defence of the status quo is rooted in snobbery and contempt. There is talent in every child and education can release it."